


How To Be A Ghost (When You're Not Really Dead)

by DeiRyuu



Series: You Don't Know The Halfa It [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Danny Phantom AU, Figuring Out Powers, Gen, Ghosts, Halfa!Marco, Pre-Relationship, Prequel, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeiRyuu/pseuds/DeiRyuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having ghost powers seems fun and all; floating through walls and turning invisible. Marco would find them even more fun if it only happened when he wanted it to. Luckily Jean's there to help him sort out these strange powers. Or maybe not so luckily. And what's up with that fourth floor storage room no one's allowed in?</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Be A Ghost (When You're Not Really Dead)

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read 'You Don't Know The Halfa It', don't worry, this piece can stand alone since it's a prequel of sorts (But please go check it out if you enjoy this).
> 
> This is an extra that I originally had planned for a flashback in the main fic, but realized that it didn't really fit in anywhere. I already had a good chunk of it written before I came to this conclusion, but I didn't want to scrap it, so it's moved on as a bonus one-shot.

Marco _hated_ his parents’ work schedule. Long, inconsistent hours that, when they were called in, resulted in many a day when Marco would see them for only three hours at most. Four if he was lucky. And the late night shifts were the absolute _worst._

However, there were also times when he was grateful for their schedule. As a sixteen-year-old boy, sometimes there were things you just didn’t want your parents around to witness.

For Marco, his white hair, glowing purple eyes, and current inability to get his feet to reconnect with the floor were definitely a few things he did not need them to see.

A few days since his fateful accident and Marco was handling it as well as anybody who suddenly found themselves with all the same abilities as a ghost.

In other words, not very well.

His best friend, Jean, was watching him handle the crisis with barely subdued amusement, chewing on the end of a toothpick as though it made him look cooler. It didn’t, but Marco had bigger concerns than the blond’s attempts to look more punk than he actually was.

Like getting his feet to stay on the ground.

Besides being able to switch between two forms, his human and ghost ones, Marco had discovered he possessed three primary abilities; he could walk through solid objects, disappear from sight, and fly to some extent, though he had yet to practice this outside of the apartment. When human, these powers were dormant unless triggered by some outside stressor- being startled seemed to be the primary stimulant.

However, when he was a ghost, they were far more active and far more uncooperative. With enough concentration he was able to get himself back to the ground, but another slip of focus and he was forcing his right arm to become visible again.

Needless to say, Jean was thoroughly amused. He was the only person Marco had let in on his ghostly condition and had asked him over to oversee his struggle to control these strange, new abilities. He hoped the moral support from a close friend would give him enough of a confidence boost to succeed in his endeavors.

He was still waiting on that moral support.

“You know, I didn’t bring you here to laugh at me,” Marco commented over Jean’s quiet sniggering, shaking his currently missing arm. It popped back into existence a few seconds later.

“I can’t help it!” Jean admitted, removing the toothpick in order to flick it towards a trashcan. “It’s your face.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” Marco asked, hands on his hips. _Besides the obvious scarring that consumes about half of it_ , his mind quickly reminded him.

“Your expressions! You just look so damn determined, like the fate of the universe hinges on you keeping your arm from disappearing. It’s gone again, by the way.” Marco groaned and forced it back again. “Plus your freckles keep doing that glowing thing whenever you get frustrated and it’s just too preci- ah, see! There they go!”

The older of the two, who had been scowling at his friend, relaxed himself with a deep exhale, his arms falling back to his sides. It seemed to have quelled the glowing as well, because Jean commented with “Well there goes the light show.”

“Why am I even friends with you?” he said in exasperation.

“ _Best_ friends,” Jean reminded him, moving from his perch on the arm of the couch to wrap an arm around the ghost boy’s shoulders. “And ‘cause I’m awesome. Who _wouldn’t_ want to be friends with me?”

“About half the school,” he muttered. With a flat glare, Marco focused long enough to make himself incorporeal, causing the blond to lose balance and flail to regain it, giggling as he stepped to the side and returned to normal.

“No fair.”

“Well stop teasing me! I’m trying to get a grasp on… whatever _this_ is,” he gestured wildly to himself, and flickered from sight briefly with a startled squeak, “and you’re not helping.”

“Fine, fine. I’m sorry.” He sighed through his nostrils, shoving both hands into his pockets. “Then what can I do to help?”

Marco fumbled for a moment. The plan was really just to get the hang of his powers, since having any slip-ups in public would certainly cause problems (In fact, Marco had barely been in public ever since the accident for that very reason). He hadn’t considering getting Jean directly involved.

Well, since he _was_ offering after all…

“I guess I could see if I can turn you invisible or intangible.” He tapped a finger against his chin. “I know I can affect objects, but I haven’t tried it on a person.”

“So I get to be your guinea pig. I feel so honored.”

“W-well you asked and that’s the only thing I can think of so-“

“Marco. Chill. I was joking.” Jean held out a hand to him, signaling that he was okay with it. He looked away as Marco took it in his own, his face adopting a pink hue.

Focusing now, Marco drew upon his powers and his form completely dropped from sight. Jean still stood there, his hand now clutching the open air. It hadn’t worked, he realized, furrowing his brows in confusion. He tried again, this time focusing on the junction of their two hands.

He flickered for a moment, the situation dawning on him. Oh god, he was holding hands with his best friend. Granted the process did require physical contact of some sort, but-

Marco shook his head, ignoring his suddenly warm face and any thoughts that came to mind that didn’t pertain to trying to extend his powers to the boy beside him.

Only his arm went invisible this time, disappearing up until his sleeve. Marco stifled a laugh at the sight as he composed himself to try again.

Third time’s the charm. Jean blinked out of existence a moment later, the only indication he was still there was the warmness pressed against Marco’s gloved palm.

“Did it work?” Jean finally asked, looking back over. Marco felt a tug against his arm as the blond jumped back in surprise. “Holy shit! I can’t even see myself!”

Marco sniggered. “Yes, Jean dear, I do believe that is how invisibility usually works.”

He couldn’t see Jean’s glower, but he knew it was there.

He brought them both back into visibility, but didn’t release him just yet. “Want to try intangibility now?”

Jean shrugged, which, for the sake of his sanity Marco was going to interpret as a ‘yes’, leading him closer to one of the walls. It only took him one try to turn both of them completely intangible, Marco using the previous trial with invisibility for reference. He slipped through the wall and into the dining room, pulling Jean along. Once through, he released his friend’s hand and they both snapped back to normal.

“Whoa. That felt weird,” Jean commented, patting himself just to make sure everything was still there. “Is it always like that?”

Marco laughed to himself and nodded. Good, so it wasn’t just him. Intangibility caused an odd sensation whenever something passed through you, like a flash of numbness. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it was definitely something that would require a bit of time to adjust to, as likely everything related to his powers would.

“Damn. No wonder you get so bothered when you randomly pass through things.”

He rolled his eyes. Yes, because _that_ was the only reason. It was uncomfortable. Nothing to do with the fact that maybe he didn’t like having to keep himself from sinking into the ground, or falling through something he was leaning on, or waking up under the bed in the middle of the night. No, _totally_ because it felt weird.

“Come on, Jean. Focus. We start school next week and I _need_ to get a better handle on this before then.” He could only imagine the ruckus any one of his slip-ups might cause.

“Fuck, we do, don’t we.” Jean scowled, bringing a hand up to his chin. His gaze lingered on Marco, now floating a few inches off the ground -of his own volition for once-, the gears in his mind turning. “Hey, we’re right under the rec room, right?”

Marco blinked and glanced to the ceiling. “Uh… I’m pretty sure. Why?”

“Then fly up there though the ceiling. Try combining your powers.”

“What? What if someone’s using it and they see?”

“…turn invisible?” he offered bluntly. “No one ever goes in there unless they have to, anyway. And it’s the middle of the afternoon, pretty much everyone’s at work.”

Marco frowned. He didn’t much like the idea of leaving the privacy of his apartment, but the idea was solid. Using all three of his powers at once would be an appropriate test of skills and he’d not done much in the ways of flying on the vertical plane- he usually just stuck to however high off the ground he unconsciously floated.

With a low grumble, he consented. “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

Marco did a mental checklist. This was going to take a lot concentration. Step one: Get off the ground. He was already floating so that was accounted for.

Step two: Invisibility. He willed himself out of sight easily enough, though it took a few moments to maintain balance between the two powers. He wobbled a bit in the air and flitted in and out of view before he stabilized himself.

Now for the hard part. Step three: Intangibility. This was going to be a bit harder because he wouldn’t know if it had worked until he tried to pass through the ceiling. He certainly _felt_ intangible when he tried it- the power came alongside a sort of empty feeling whenever he was idle in that state.

He struggled to find a stable state between the three abilities and, once satisfied, Marco made his attempt. Propelling himself through the air, he ascended towards the ceiling, eyes slipping shut just before the point of impact.

He allowed himself to open them again when he sailed through unhindered.

The rec room was, as Jean had predicted, unoccupied, so he allowed himself to become visible again as he looked around.

Marco himself couldn’t remember the last time he’d bothered to come in there- a holiday party perhaps, or maybe the last residence meeting. And from the undisturbed nature of the decor, no one else had sought it out for any personal reasons as of late. The building’s superintendant at least kept the room clean, despite its apparent lack of use.

Mostly clean, anyway. He squinted, eyes following dull blue stains at few points in the ceiling, stagnant like water damage. He would’ve dismissed them for water damage, had it not been for the slight, pulsating glow they shared.

Marco frowned. That certainly wasn’t usual.

He ducked back down, slipping through the floor where Jean was waiting.

He glanced up from picking at his fingernails when the white-haired boy reappeared. “I’m guessing it worked.”

“Oh, yeah. But there’s a weird thing up here I think you should see.”

His expression grew curious. That was a loaded statement given Marco’s general situation. “Weird how?”

“I don’t know, just come look.” He floated down lower and held out a hand to Jean who, after a moment’s hesitation, took it. Marco pulled him up, through the ceiling, and set him down on the floor on the other side.

Then took a moment to realize what he’d just done.

“Jean! I just flew _both_ of us through the ceiling! I _am_ getting the hang of this.”

The blond smirked in amusement. “Well duh. You do just fine when you’re not over thinking and worrying. Now what am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Oh, right. It’s that weird stuff up there.”

“What weird stuff?” the blond questioned, following Marco’s gaze. His lips twisted into a frown. “I don’t see anything.”

“That.” He pointed upwards, a little frustrated. “Those blue patches on the ceiling.”

“Marco, there’s nothing blue up there. Is your vision really that bad now?”

He frowned, furrowing his nose. That couldn’t be right. Yeah, his vision was sub-par at best since the accident -scarring tended to do that- but, if anything, his right eye saw with a very de-saturated color palette and he was quite clearly picking up a blue hue that stood out from everything around it. Experimentally, he shut his good eye, allowing his vision to be cast in near black and white. The blue was even more noticeable now, dark and dull like a stormy sky.

“No, it’s definitely there,” he remarked, opening the other eye again. “Am I the only one that can see it?”

“I think we need to get you glasses,” Jean offered.

Marco leveled a glare in his direction and refrained from mentioning how his parents were scheduling an optometrist appointment for him. He’d figure it out soon enough. “Come on, let’s check it out.” He grabbed Jean by the wrist, using his powers to float them both upwards again.

He paused for a moment to catch his breath, having expended a good deal of energy on transporting them both twice in near succession. This gave Jean a chance to look around the new locale. The room they’d stumbled into was a fairly spacious one, or at least it would’ve been if not for the piles of stuff tossed nearly everywhere. Boxes, furniture, decorations, all probably _years_ old if their condition was any indicator, thrown about in no semblance of order.

Yet, despite the chaos, the room was oddly clean. No dust build-up, no cobwebs. It was as if someone had moved everything in there around recently, though the room itself was not in a livable condition.

Livable for humans at least.

Something in the room rattled and Jean retreated back to his friend, placing a hand on the still recovering boy’s shoulder.

“Marco,” he began “you know the storage room on the fourth floor that nobody uses? That we sometimes hear crashes from because there’s supposed to be a poltergeist there”

The rattling continued as things began to rise up in the air and dance about the room in an orbit. A figure slowly began to melt into existence in the center of it all.

“I think we’re in it.”

The misty figure solidified into the semblance of a human, a thin, gaunt-faced, young man who was orchestrating the rearrangement of the room with a form of telekinesis. A blue light, not unlike the one that had led them there, was emanating from his body, as well as the things currently being hurled in their direction

“The blue glow!” Marco exclaimed, ducking under a flying clock. “It’s him! It’s like an aura or something. The stuff he’s levitating has it too. I must be able to see it because of my powers.”

“Wonderful,” Jean retorted, using a pile of boxes for a shield. “I’m so happy for you. Now can we do something about it before I get a concussion?”

Marco made a sheepish rub under his nose, deciding that Jean was right in this situation. He could work on the details later, but for now they had to get this poltergeist to stop hurling things at them before someone, most likely Jean, got hurt.

“Sir! Mr. Poltergeist, could you please stop?” he entreated, dodging projectiles left and right. “My friend and I aren’t here to hurt you.”

The poltergeist either did not believe him, or didn't care, because he upgraded his arsenal to the large pieces of furniture strewn about. Unable to weave out of the way of the larger objects, Marco forced himself intangible to avoid being hit, which caught the spirit’s attention.

“You’re a ghost!” he rasped in an echoed voice, his guard beginning to lower. “You’re not one of those blasted scientists.” The orbit of décor and furniture slowed in velocity, everything sinking back towards the ground.

“No duh!” Jean shouted from his hiding place, and the offensive stance was back up as he prepare to launch something in the direction of the voice.

“Wait!” Marco threw up his gloved hands. “It’s okay, he’s with me. Just, please calm down. We’re not here for you, I promise.”

He exchanged glances between the two teens, a strange cross of panicked and suspicious. “He’s human, but you’re a ghost. Why would you associate with the living?”

“Because he’s my friend,” Marco explained.

He didn’t seem to like that answer. He shook his head in confusion, boxes around him rattling. “How can you just simply _be friends?_ Humans do not befriend ghosts, they… _fear,_ and-and _hunt,_ and…” he trailed off, staring oddly at Marco. “And yet you seem weirdly human yourself.”

“…I do?” he glanced over to Jean, who shrugged.

“Something’s off… like… you’re not quite all ghost… only half.” He gasped loudly. “You’re a halfa! But, but how? Why’s there a halfa here?!”

“…halfa…?”

“I’ve heard stories, _legends,_ but- but I never thought…” He stared at Marco with a wide-eyed look of wonder that made him feel all the more self-conscious.

“Excuse me, but, uh, exactly what is a ‘halfa’?”

The poltergeist gasped again, suddenly invading Marco’s personal space. “Y-you don’t know?” The teen shook his head, trying to subtly ease away from the crazy ghost in his face. The last thing he wanted to do was offend a poltergeist. “Half-human, half-ghost. You’re dead, but you still live, hovering on the boundary between life and death. You are the bridge between our worlds.”

“Poetic,” Jean remarked from across the room.

Marco’s reaction was a little less composed. “I’m _dead?”_ He’d always assumed the powers were merely a side effect from the exposure to spectral energy; that he was a ‘living ghost’ in the manner of speaking. But, had the accident actually killed him, and merely trapped his spirit in his body?

He took a sudden interest in his hands, curling and uncurling his fingers, staring at them as if they weren’t real, like they would disappear at any moment.

Which they did, actually, reappearing again alongside a panicked squeak as his unstable abilities translated his insecurity as a request.

Jean walked over and poked his friend’s freckled nose, earning a startled ‘eep’ and a brief flare of purple eyes. “Hey, he said _half_ human, so you can’t be dead.” He turned to address the poltergeist. “Right?”

The ghost flinched away further, still uncertain of the young human. “I-I guess? I only know a-a little about halfas, but they supposedly still live out their h-human lives…”

“Well there you go!” He clapped Marco roughly on his shoulders. “And we have a name for this. Now let’s go, this place smells like mold and your glowiness is starting to hurt my eyes.”

“That’s not a word, Jean.”

“Is now! So say goodbye to your friend and let’s _go._ ” He tugged impatiently at Marco’s sleeve and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Was this boy seriously only a year younger?

He faced the nervous ghost, who was still watching from a short distance, and inclined his head in a polite gesture. “We’ll get out of your hair now. Thank you, Mr. Poltergeist, for clearing some stuff out for me.”

“I-it’s Daz,” he corrected, “and I should be thankful to even _see_ a halfa!”

He smiled. “Marco, Jean.” The blond elbowed him roughly in the side, causing him to stumble, and Marco returned the favor. “I need to get this grump home now, so goodbye. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

With a brisk wave, he retook Jean’s hand and floated them both down two floors, back to the apartment where they had started. Marco fell to the couch with a tired sigh, turning himself human again. “Okay, that’s enough paranormal activity for one day. I’m beat.”

Jean nodded in silent agreement, taking up the armchair. “So… halfa, huh? I like it. Has a nice right to it.”

The brunet spared him a glance. “I guess? Though why do I have the suspicion you’ll just use it to make terrible puns?” The grin he received was all the conformation Marco needed.

“But… the way he said it. Stories. Legends. That means there were others before me. I’m not the only one!” He leaned back further into the cushions. “Think we’ll ever meet one?”

“At this point? I think anything’s pretty much possible. Just probably won’t be anytime soon.”

Marco nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I just wonder when…”

“Don’t know. Maybe… halfa year?”

As he pelted the other with his current arsenal of throw pillows, Marco asked himself for the second time that day exactly why he was friends with this boy.


End file.
